


The End of War

by thekid21



Category: Punisher (Comics)
Genre: Bittersweet, Bittersweet Ending, Character Death, Death as a relief, Drabble, Frank is tired, Time to Go Home
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-06
Updated: 2018-01-06
Packaged: 2019-03-01 06:56:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13289478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thekid21/pseuds/thekid21
Summary: The end of Frank Castle's war.





	The End of War

The Punisher looked down the wrong end of a .9mm Sig. He wasn’t listening to the man talking at the other end of the gun. He looked into the dark barrel and imagined finally walking down that tunnel. There wasn’t a light at the end for the Punisher. The bottomless pit he’d fall into would be a blessing in itself. Heaven wasn’t a place of white clouds and angels for Frank. It was the moment he could lay his weapons down and fall into the embrace of his wife. If there was no afterlife he’d still welcome feeling nothing over continuing to live with the absence of his family. 

Confronted with the bullet that’d seal his final death he could only picture his family in the park, broken and bleeding in the sunshine beneath clear blue skies. 

Maria had blue eyes. The Punisher could list the details of Frank Castle’s family as though simply reading a chart describing anonymous strangers. 

For the first time since her death he felt something more when he looked back on this detail. The sliver of Frank Castle that had remained dormant during times of war was waking up for the first time in twenty years. The Punisher’s war was at an end and in the second before the firing pin hit his bullet Frank Castle opened his eyes for the last time. He saw it all. 

Maria walking down the isle. 

Lisa finger painting with the intense concentration of a four year old. 

Frank Jr. chasing the mangy stray Maria took in one year. 

He found himself half smiling as he turned his eyes to the stars for what felt like the first time. A warm breeze ruffled his uncut hair stirring a deep sigh from his battle scared chest. The sound of the gun firing reached him from far away like the sound of a distant symphony. 

The Punisher could never die. It had become more than a human force, but the man Frank Castle was finished. He was free.

**Author's Note:**

> This drabble has been sitting in my files for a few years, but I could never fit it into a larger fic. I really wanted to use it though, so I'm just posting this one as is.


End file.
